Dancing In The Shadows
by Mr. Conrad Ecklie
Summary: Ever wondered what was behind Ecklie? Come and read to find out. M rating is probably a bit of overreacting, but what the hey. Welcome to the Ecklie Saga. Reviews are appreciated!
1. Just A Dance, Just One Dance

**Dancing In The Shadows**

**Chapter One: Just A Dance, Just One Dance**

Ecklie was no fool, so he took careful precaution in parking his car as it slid smoothly in to the free parking space of the dance club. Getting out of the dark coloured Mercedes and locking it, the man looked up with a sneer on his face at the sign of the establishment, his lips curling a bit to show impeccably white teeth which made his sadistic look appear even more so. He'd last come to that place, nineteen years ago, turning over twenty when it came a certain time in the new year of 2005. It was a dancing club that he had known of and she had heard of and they had gone to a small handful of times in her last days spent as a living being. Of course the place had been through many hands over the years, changing with the times, but essentially things had remained in somewhat the same order. The club served food, drinks and had a dance floor with a few different levels of seating so one could be right by the activity on the floor, above it or far away from it. At least, that was the way it had been some odd twenty years ago and a bit before that. The sign, which still blared out in bright neon letters the type of place it was, held true to that fact, that the building still remained a place to dance and to dine, for those people "sophisticated" enough to partake in what it offered. By no means was the place some low down, seedy club of the drug dealing variety, neither was it exclusive, it was just, of a high standard, no riff raff wanted.

Shoving his keys in his pants pocket the Dayshift Supervisor let his face fall straight again and he looked down to where he was about to walk, frowning disapprovingly at a greasy puddle of rainwater sitting near a rainwater drain. Some things never changed. Stepping over it he cut out the noises of the city around him and inclined his head downwards a slight bit more as he pushed the front door open to the place. He was greeted by a piece of music accompanied by a slow tempo. So much for not listening. Putting that aside, Ecklie found one of the few lone tables left; unfortunately it was near the dance floor. Taking a seat he ordered himself a drink and a meal, all the while being vaguely aware that it was a table for two, not one, then set himself the meaningless task of taking in his surroundings.

As he had assumed, nothing had changed much, the dance floor that he sat next to was still large, circular shaped and sunken. It still had a small flight of steps leading down to it and a door off the side to the changing rooms on the floor below. The bar was still in the same place, although it had gotten new leather covered seats. The levels of seating, in retrospect, were still the same. There was an above level, a middle level, a lower level and some secluded areas with far off tables that sat at the edges of the large room. Sure, the tables and chairs may have changed a bit, but nothing much else had. He could still order Greek salad and a glass of ginger ale ,so that meant the menu probably hadn't changed much either. It had changed hands, that he could tell by the air of the place, but whoever the new owners were, they had seen the success of what they had bought and kept with it.

Why he had even come to the place in the beginning was his guess and his guess only. After visiting his aunt and playing nice boy blue, Ecklie had walked out of the nursing home and gotten into his car before driving off. For whatever reasons he had, the man hadn't driven home as he would have normally done. Instead, he had driven around Vegas for about half an hour before finding himself in the familiar street, familiar mainly because of the dance club. His god forsaken guardian, his aunt, had insisted he do dance lessons as a child, and, often enough, he had been dragged to that place to compete, practice, the whole shebang. When he had left school and the classes behind and moved onto university, he still had come back. Why, because he, for his aunt's sake mainly, undertook and completed a Master of Fine Arts in Dance. Even while doing that, as a young university student the club had been a good resource, a place to practice and a place to eat, end of story. Further along the timeline, he had suggested that he take Michelle there for a meal and then of course, the inevitable had happened and she had been killed and Ecklie had never come back to that place. Until then, of course.

Interrupted by some loud, attention grabbing voice, which boomed out of the surround sound system speakers, Ecklie turned his head away from a place in the wall before automatically looking up to it. The DJ box, a sound proof control room with a large front glass window and its own entrance door just off to the side of one of the upper levels above the bar. He had nearly missed it. Almost, because he would have seen it next, but, had instead been disturbed by the announcers annoying speaking. Finding that the box was still pretty much the same as everything else, no surprise there, the man listened to what the voice had to say. Something about a small something or other club ballroom dancing competition, public clearing the dance floor for it, rounds, prizes, money and then the floor was free to the public again. Blah.

Because of the way the announcer worded it, the competition, to the eyes of the unknowing was now appealing as shit. Immediately, Ecklie heard the soft sounds of people shifting their seats around to face the dance floor. At the same the meager offering of tables in similar positions to the one that he was sitting at were all quickly filled up with people. To him though, a person with a gained eye for dance and what was good and what was not, it was just another meaningless competition organized by some group of people for their own people. It wasn't even a traditional Las Vegas one like the competitions that were on at the middle of the year. It was just like the DJ had said, a small club competition. Holding it at the dance club floor just made the competitors feel more important and helped them gain more confidence at performing in public. Ecklie knew that, he had been given the same trick and forced to do the exact same thing when he had danced in competitions.

As the first group of dancers in what promised to be a probably utterly boring, badly choreographed night, at least under Ecklie's strict standards, started to file on to the dancer floor to a raucously loud round of applause, the man sat back in his chair and started to properly wait for his meal. With the place being as packed as it was it seemed as if it took quite a while to put together a simple salad and a drink. Being that his was the most recent order on the long list of people waiting, it was expected and caused him no surprise.

Eventually a very apologetic looking waiter came out the kitchen door, with a round wooden tray in both hands, a sure sign of nervousness since generally they were meant to carry it in one. He made his way, weaving almost unsteadily, over to where the now gradually more irritated than usual man sat. With unsteady hands, the nervous man set down the Dayshift Supervisor's meal, along with cutlery and a serviette, and mumbled something about the kitchen messing up his order number. Then he put the tray under one arm and waited. Ecklie knew what he wanted, a tip, so, raising his head in response, he gave the man a cold, hard glare which effectively sent the waiter running helter skelter back to his little hovel in the kitchen. At least until he came out to deliver the next order to the next person. The CSI smirked at the jittery waiter's actions and then at the general air he had brought to his table. While people dared to ask other singular people if they could borrow, take or sit in the spare seats, nobody dared come near to his. Good for him, he still had it; it saved him a lot of unnecessary trouble.

With the waiter dealt with, Ecklie looked back briefly to the swirling couples and gave another one of his disapproving glares, complete with frown. Turning back to his meal, he picked up his fork and began to eat his salad, pausing occasionally to drink from the glass.

It had taken a lot of hard work to get through the evening's shift, but due to some certain circumstances had seen people doing a varied amount of things to complete the case, Felicia had been let go earlier than expected. People who were still dealing with the case were either staying by the victim's side because she was a person near one of their own, trying to manage crowd control, or processing the scene. But, like in her case and the case of a few other people, there were the few who were told to go home, take care of themselves and generally prepare for the next installment in what was just another epic day in the Vegas Lab's history. Although, unlike Sushie, she wasn't overworked, near breakdown point and exhausted. The Homicide Detective slash CSI had had to bring along her son to work that day and that was probably one of the key reasons for her being sent off. Felicia had tried a small amount of protest, but, had otherwise gone off quietly, Xavier following along beside her. However, she didn't mind her son; he was a great help and support to her whenever she needed him and vice versa for her to him. Especially because they were a single mother and son team, they stuck together.

Making her way up to the door and ensuring that her son was safely beside her, Felicia put her hand on the cold metal door handle. As she did so, the woman craned her head upwards to look at the bright sign of the dance club, illuminated when put up against the shiny black night sky up above. Just being to see the sign and not very much of it at that, she let go of the door handle and stepped back wards, reading the words of it before nodding. Touching the door handle once again, she pushed the door to the place open and was greeted with the sights and scents it held inside. The ten year old boy took in the most of same information as his mother did and some extra. Where she was only able to take in appearance and smells he could listen to the sounds. They were curious noises, things such as the music and the idle clink of a nearby glass as somebody made a toast to something or perhaps someone, made him happy to be alive. It was a crowded place, unanimously that thought was shared between both minds as the two Cubans, new to the City of Sin, stepped in from the cold whip of the wind outside and into the warmth of the building. It was a nice door that was pushed to get in and pulled to get out, it had two lovely, long, rounded stainless steel handles on each side and white frosted white glass set in a dark rich brown wooden frame.

Taking in the glittering bowels of the dace club for a few moments Felicia, noted that in all areas it was crowded. The elegantly placed tables where filled with people and what must have been the waiters and waitresses of the place could be seen occasionally emerging from what must have been the kitchen door. The Warrick Brown person had not been wrong though because there was what looked to be a competition happening on the dance floor. From the distance she was at, the Homicide could just see the tops of swirling couples as they glided around and around in a soul filled dance. To dance, a person had to have spirit and that was really all they needed because it let them fly free and enjoy what they were doing. If they did it for no purpose, then there was no point.

Almost on the verge of making the decision to leave and find a meal elsewhere, the dark skinned, dark haired woman caught sight of one spare chair at an already occupied table. At that presentation she frowned, the Warrick Brown person had mentioned the place served food and she did want to eat something different for a change. Until they got the courage to go shopping, rice and black beans was quickly becoming her and her son's staple diet. There were other reasons for their coming to the club though, other than just for a change of diet. The Homicide wanted to do something special together with her son, introduce him to his new home, find a good place to go to and maybe, just maybe, even have a dance.

Making an initiative decision to stay, Felicia looked to her son and upon finding his hand she gave it a little squeeze before letting it go and nodding for him to follow her. The boy read the small movements well and smiled at both the affectionate squeeze of his hand his mother had gave him and her nod. She always knew what to do and how to do it, even if men did like to look at her and whistle, he knew she could handle things if they got too much. And it was nice to see her so happy. After how her old boss back in Havana had treated her, the way she spoke with such faith and cheer about the Mr. Grissom person and how he had made her so uplifted, did, just like his mother, reassure him and tell him he could trust. Even better was that he was beginning to do just that, he was beginning to believe that their coming to America was the right choice after all, for both of them, mother and son.

Following his mother as she walked forward, he weaved his way along beside her as she wove between the tables towards the one she seemed to be seeking out, the one with a spare seat. He liked going out with her and often did so, but still, it was a bit curious as to why she would seek a seat with a stranger. Then again, somehow it didn't seem that unusual, just because, even if they didn't eat, nobody minded another person taking a seat to sit on unless it was already taken. The seat opposite the man didn't seem to look like it was occupied, it was still pushed in to the table and it didn't have any coat or other similar item on it, so maybe, he might let them sit down, if he was kind enough.

Eventually getting very near to the table, Felicia checked that her son was still with her as she took the last few approaching steps, stopping just to the side of the seated person. She felt happy that she'd taken off her gun and all her badges and identification. Being off duty she really shouldn't have had them on anyway, but then again it wasn't that often she went without them. It was good that she had done so for that instance though, at least the man wouldn't think she was coming to arrest him or something silly like that. Clearing her throat softly she quickly caught herself from falling over the edge of being afraid to speak. Instead of focusing on that thought the Homicide began translating thoughts into the spoken word.

"May I take this seat please?" Felicia said, questioning the man and hoping he could hear her voice above the general noise of the dance club along with the music that the competitors were dancing to. Still they twirled around and around, sometimes even performing the some of the tricks of dancing that she knew so very well. Practice made perfect and in her case and many other people's, experience brought much practice. She also hoped that he would be able to distinguish her voice. Between her Cuban accent and her slight speech impediment, which caused some of her words to slur, she sounded, if anything at all, a little drunk. Or at least she thought so about the drunken sounding part.

Ecklie heard the voice just as he was about to eat another mouthful of the salad and he stopped very briefly, holding his fork mid air, for about two seconds. He then resumed motion, put it in his mouth, took the food, chewed it slowly for a bit and swallowed soon after. Halfway through the meal and hardly having started on his drink when he was introduced to the accented voice with its drunken slur, the Dayshift Supervisor had no more reason to reply than he usually had when fronted with some complete stranger. So simply, with no extra added incentive to reply or even be kind, the man was going to do what he wanted and finish of his mouthful before answering. Having completed that, he then looked up with a hatred filled glare to the dark skinned woman, completely ignoring the little boy that now huddled closer as he stood next to her.

"What do you want?" the man questioned in an icy voice, which lacked any human compassion whatsoever, as he continued to glare at the woman.

"I say, may I take this seat please?" Felicia said, raising her voice a fraction of a bit when she spoke for the second time around, quoting what she had said in the first instance. She was almost 100 sure that as she raised her voice that time, the curbed rounding defect it had, got more obvious. There was something immediately frightening about the man, but, for the sake alone, of being brave for her son, the woman just fixed a normal gaze on him as he glared at her. Despite the fact that she would have preferred a ten foot thick brick wall between him and her at that exact moment, she kept up the look. On the other hand, looking at him, she saw the veil that he set up; the man looked protective of something and her look almost softened but didn't. She just kept giving him the same normal stare.

Ecklie sniffed contemptuously and let a growl echo in the back of his throat. Even his upbringing with his aunt's "always be polite to women Conrad, it will come back tenfold" and her sending him to "social behavior classes", did not come in to play at that moment. Although, the matter did linger very faintly right in the back of some of his most hated memories, which was, pretty much, every memory he owned to date. Quite a few of these memories, of course, were accompanied by such people as Grissom, Brown, Willows, Sidle and the Nightshift in general. He knew he was better than the lot of them, they were all too personally involved, and he, he wasn't.

Looking around and finding no other seats, the man growled again and turned his head back to the woman. Damn his aunt for her mind warping behavioral influences.

"Fine, if you must." Ecklie said just as coldly as he had previously. The man then went back to his salad and continued to eat while occasionally averting his eyes to the dance floor. This was an effort to try and appear busy in hope that the woman, whoever she was, drunk, or not, would get the hint and leave him alone.

Felicia read the man's lips and nodded with a small but grateful smile before taking the seat. With a silent nod, she welcomed her son to sit on her lap, which he did, but without much success. So, when the waiter came out to do his rounds, the woman excused herself silently from table with another nod of her head and went over to talk with the man. When she pointed out the table that she was sitting at and proceeded to ask if there was a spare seat that she could have, he seemed to look shaken. Putting that aside, when the nervous man said that there was one, the woman asked him if he could bring it over and he agreed to, as long as she would order quickly. Then he continued on to say something about not minding the tip, but she barely got the words because he was speaking so rapidly. Going back to the table, Felicia took a seat and began to look at the menu with her son. Before long the small boy had a seat to and they had ordered a bowl of wedges and two glasses of lemonade.

For the amount of people that were there, the meal and drinks came with surprising speed. As the waiter turned and literally scurried off back to the kitchen, Felicia caught the look on his face, it was as if he didn't really get something. Truthfully, the waiter was wondering as to how such a woman, even with the curious way she spoke, could keep company with the man. But, the woman herself, didn't know that. Turning back in her seat, the Homicide looked to the man who had let her take the spare place at his table and add one, on such a busy Saturday night. Taking him in for a moment, because he seemed to busy with his salad and the dance floor, she got a chance to study him further, amusedly noticing the way the lights would occasionally cause the top of his semi bald head to shine a little. All in all, he wasn't actually that bad a looking man, just very imposing, but she could see past that.

"Thank you for letting us sit here." Felicia said eventually, after swallowing a mouthful of piping hot potato. She quickly took a drink after she spoke, seeing as she had preempted the food's temperature.

"Is very kind of you. You dance, yes? The eye you watch with says experience but maybe you say otherwise." the woman said gratefully as she watched him. Not once did he look up at her while she spoke, to consumed, still, with his meal and the dancing competition.

Ecklie swallowed his mouthful and glared up at the woman as he put his fork down on the table.

"Look, whoever you are, you are seated only because there are no other seats and I am not one for fuss. If you're drunk and trying to chat me up, leave it be because I'm not interested. I would figure you should be more concerned about drinking and driving with a child in tow, than trying to get someone into bed." he said, already preempting the reason for her obvious speech defect, as alcohol intoxication.

Felicia was, with the drunk stereotype the man had just blatantly given her, shocked and almost to the point where she could have taken a nimble hand from her lap underneath the table and slapped him sharply across the cheek. Something, a good deal of self restraint and not wanting to get herself arrested or in any vague form of trouble, or, set a bad exampled in front of her son, stopped her from doing so and instead, her mouth formed a hard little line. She almost hated the man, but not quite, there was something about him still that continued to nag at her. Despite all the hardness he had, he did watch the dancers with the same type of eye as many of the most experienced people she had seen to date.

Knowing that her son would probably have the same mixed feelings of hatred and disgust, Felicia reached a hand over to clasp his. Noticing that it was trembling in anger, she lent over to whisper in his ear.

"Calme a mi hijo." the woman said to her son in Spanish before letting go of his hand and sitting up straight, facing the man, who was yet again occupied with other things. The words that she had just said, in a direct Spanish to English translation, meant "Calm down my son", something which the small boy knew seeing as both he and his mother spoke fluent Spanish. And he did try to calm down. It just angered him so much to see some man treat his mother like that. He could see she was angry and upset too at what the man had said; even if she might not have gotten everything he had spoken. Nobody should have been able to say that and it was what they had both been equally afraid of, Felicia herself, being treated differently because of the way she spoke as a result of her lacking the ability to hear. Steadying himself as his mother let go of his hand, the boy noticed that she had already done the same. Continuing on from that horrid moment, Xavier then picked up another wedge and ate it silently, glaring at the cruel man out of the corner of his eyes, and eventually getting his hands to stop trembling in anger.

"I am not drunk, nor would I ever, ever, ever risk my son's health or life for the sake of this, this, this alcohol that you say I drink." the Homicide said relatively half a minute later, suddenly letting her anger at the man out in one short, rounded, slurred burst. Although she had put some thought into what she had said, the built up anger had seen that the very core of her thoughts came out instead of plain, un-angry words. Seeing that it had no visible effect on the man, as he continued eating his nearly finished meal and drinking his nearly half empty drink, she soon went back to her own meal and drink with her son sitting nearer her after shifting his seat a bit as such.

For a while, Felicia just sat, eating and drinking as she looked at the man, occasionally averting her eyes, her reason being as to not appear to be staring at him. Sometimes she would talk to her son, but, in lure of not making the man speak again, they both remained fairly silent. Neither did they sign to each other for the fear still stood that he would guess of her affliction if he hadn't already guessed by her voice, yet, after his comment, that didn't seem as likely. Even after her conversation to the angry man, it had not lessened her fear about speaking and her secret being discovered. If anything, she felt a bit more wary, around him at least.

Seeing the boy content with his own thoughts, the Homicide mouthed a small sentence to him, "we can talk later", before looking back, yet again, at the dance floor. The woman raised an eyebrow as she saw the competitors file off in a mass of swirling, bowing, costumes. Looking around, she saw people clapping and realized that the competition was over, finally, as it seemed. Then again, for such a large hype it must have been a very special or large competition, more special she thought, than large.

Leaning down to whisper something in her son's ear, Felicia sat up and looked at him as a small smile spread across the young boy's face.

"I make the introductions now, yes. I am Malika and would you like to dance, seeing as the dancing floor, is now free." the woman said, smiling quite innocently at the man and seeing that she had caught his attention, especially with her last sentence. If he would not answer her question and tell her of his experience level, then she was just going to have to test it, and him, out.

Looking up at her when she began speaking again, Ecklie nearly cursed out loud when the woman asked him to dance, but quasi unconsciously stopped himself just in time. He remembered now why he had come out instead of going back home for a quiet meal. His aunt, damn her to absolute hell, had asked him about his social life, was he getting out, no, he should go out more, had been the gist of the conversation. He hadn't forgotten the reason, but, just as he had done to many of the other conversations they had had, he had pushed it to the absolute back of his mind until he thought about it no more. This was never really a good, or, the best, method, because, almost every time he did it, instead of escaping, he was almost forced by sheer nature, to comply with her words. He made his own decisions, surely, but, he wanted to make her and keep her quiet as quickly as possible, so, instead of receiving a lecture he took the easy way out and sometimes, just sometimes, did what she suggested. If he didn't, he tried to lie, but she had the uncanny way of catching him out, so, at times, he gave up and just complied like he was doing at that current moment.

And now, now, her annoyingly sweet voice came back to haunt him, a direct quote from a time when she had been watching his dancing class and he had stubbornly refused a girl a dance. She had some crazy idea, as she scolded him afterwards, that he should never refuse a woman a dance and the words floated back to him exactly like that. "Never refuse a woman a dance Conrad, it's not polite." That woman deserved every single thing she got, what had his Aunt been trying to prove anyway? But, in the effort of having something substantial to present to her, Ecklie fixed a glare on the woman now sitting opposite him and nodded curtly.

"Julius." the man said, using his middle name to introduce himself with before pushing his chair back and standing up with a rude abruptness. The less she knew about him the better, and, unknowingly, the woman had done exactly the same thing and used her middle name to introduce herself, as well.

"One dance and that is it, I would watch your child, there's been a spat of child kidnapping in the news as of late." Ecklie said, almost hissing, spitting chips, so to say, at the fact that he had to be, so, that way. Damn his aunt and her words and damn the fact that she made him, for that moment at least, unable to refuse a woman a dance.

When the man stood up, Felicia followed suit and gave a small nod and a meaningful look to her to her son, telling him silently to stay in his place and keep himself safe while she was gone. It was a look and a movement that he read loud and clear since he nodded back. After that, she waited until the man had begun to walk towards the small set of steps that led down to the dance floor, before she turned around and near flanked him at his right side. He looked angry about something, but she didn't mention anything, the man seemed like somebody that nobody wanted to mess with and she didn't want to either. He was angry, maybe, that she had gotten her way and he hadn't, for he seemed the kind of man who was used to scaring people into submission.

Letting him have access to the steps first, she followed the Julius man on to the floor and stood facing him when they were both on it, with her mouth bent in another one of her small smiles.

"Now you address me as drunk, which I stated I am not. I am hard of hearing, so, when we dance." she said, making a deliberate pause to take both of his hands in her corresponding ones, his own left in her own right and his own right in her own left, before continuing to speak.

"Before we dance, yes, you tap out the beat of this song to me ,so I know how fast I may go." the Homicide finished up carefully as she let her face fall, almost straight again, as she felt with a mix of pleasure and relief, that her hair was still covering her ears. She had made sure that there was a distinct air that she was taunting him, which was what she was purposely doing, in a way. To her enjoyment, it showed a bit in his facial movements, because, he still looked annoyed with the world, or her, or both.

Ecklie suppressed a groan and a grimace at the same time and turned them into a despising frown as he swallowed. Having finished his meal, he still had his drink to go and by the looks of it, so had she in the finished meal un-drunken drink department.

"Fine, spin your wheels." the Dayshift Supervisor said, narrowing his eyes a bit as he spoke before opening them again. He still hadn't had much of an effect on the woman and it pissed him off to the empth degree because he didn't want any of what was happening to him right now. Adjusting his hands just as the song started and keeping out a less than keen ear for the beat, Ecklie removed his hands all of a sudden from the woman's. The man nodded silently as he tapped out the beat with his hands before mouthing out the words "fast walking pace." He'd heard the announcer say the title for the song and the band that it was by, for whatever reason he had. It was something called In The Shadows by The Rasmus, some new shit was his guess, something that he had not heard about, definitely, but something that he could, however, dance to. With a Master of Fine Arts in Dance in his hands, there wasn't much he couldn't perform a move to. With that and the equal speed with which he had removed his hands, Ecklie took the woman's own up again and began to dance, not giving her much time, if any at all, to realize what type of song exactly, she was dancing to.

At the last moment, before he took her into a quick swirling movement, and felt her follow along with it, the man noticed without mild surprise that they were one of the few lone dancers on the floor. That meant they were on more of a public display than they would have been if the floor had been more crowded.

From there on in, things went very fast for the pair. Felicia barely had time to gather her wits about her before the man dragged her into a spinning motion. She'd just been able to read his lips beforehand, and, only afterwards, as her feet moved quickly with his, was she able put it all together. By then, she already knew where she was going.

Relying solely on himself for the most part, Ecklie took lead in setting out the dance moves, all the while keeping on one of his icy straight faces.

As he had already started out with a few different types of spin steps to a chorus of oou's plus the beat, the rest of the dance seemed to fall into place.

_No sleep,  
No sleep, until I'm done with finding the answer  
Won't stop,  
Won't stop, before I find the cure for this cancer_

The woman went, holding one of his hands, twirling in an under arm turn before his arm let out straight and she spun out with a single step, before going in again, both pairs of feet moving continuously in fast motion.

_Sometimes I feel like going down I'm so disconnected  
Somehow I know that I am haunted to be wanted_

Come the first line, somehow the pair danced a fast shuffle before Felicia was taken under the man's arms in two fast spins before they went into a slower more wide stepped shuffling movement. As the second line came around, Ecklie upped the ante, holding one of the woman's hands he took a step out which she followed suit by doing the same with the opposite foot before they stepped in again. Then, as the line of song started to proceed, the woman was taken in a series of two spins out and around. She then danced back in the same way she had come and took his hands again before joining in with a few, slightly sultry, hip twisting boogie movements.

_I've been watching, I've been waiting  
In the shadows for my time  
I've been searching, I've been living  
For tomorrows all my life_

As the song reached its chorus, ultimately the most empowering and fast feeling part of the entire song, the Dayshift Supervisor went back to basics. Basic steps at least, because, even when doing so, he sped up the rate at which they were moving. It was quite spectacular, in a way, as they did the basic steps of the Salsa dance. This was because a backwards and forwards basic was not just a backwards and forwards basic step. It was Ecklie with his right hand on the woman's shoulder, her left on his and then the two arms they had to spare holding hands in the air as he took a step forward with one foot and she took a step backwards with the one opposite to it. Then, with the other feet, they did the reverse. And that was done fast, very fast and repeated a few times because of the sheer lightning pace with which they were going at, before they went sliding into a basic side step. Their movements left nothing to be desired and flung away all questions about why the man and general leader of the dance choose such simplistic moves to do. After one foot belonging to Felicia and the one mirroring it on Ecklie, stepped backwards, just a bit behind its owner's other foot, both people together traced half an x in movement with their feet. One thing could be said as they stepped back into place, hands still the same. Whatever it was, by the time they had done that, they had already had drawn the crowd's attention.

_Oou-oou oou-oou  
In the shadows..._

_Oou-oou oou-oou  
In the shadows..._

In that brief interlude between any significant amount of words, Ecklie, putting his right hand in the woman's left, let go of her own right hand and let her swing out at a certain, but very quick, speed. So much and so accurate, that when both their arms extended out fully, instead of spinning her back in, he let her spin around so that they had each others back's facing. Then the Dayshift Supervisor caught the woman's right hand with his left. At the same time he let go of her left and then brought her around to face him again before he took the recently departed hand in his spare, right one.

_They say that I must learn to kill before I can feel safe  
But I, I'd rather kill myself than turn into their slave_

Instead of the backwards and forward's basic move, as the music grew nearer to an expected chorus again, Ecklie released both the woman's hands from his. In one beat, he took a step back with his right foot, and, then, on the second beat, he let the left leading foot step back next to it and connect with the floor, just as he saw the woman copy his exact same moves to the T. At the third beat, the left foot tapped once, before, on the fourth beat, it swapped roles with the right foot and did what the right had just done. The left foot took a step back, and, following afterwards, the right foot did the step back and tap that the left had done previously.

With the original set of step, step, tap, already done twice, the Dayshift Supervisor preformed it a further two times before he came to a standstill. Almost, because, seeing as the steps had been at a fairly quick speed, there was room still left on the first line of lyrics. Ecklie tapped his right foot in time to the beat, four times. Seeing that still, with the exact same foot, the woman was mimicking his exact moves, as expected, the man decided to test her, see how far she could take the parade. So, he spun around briskly, once, and stopped with his right foot stepped out in front of him, his leg stretched. And, in perfect time, the woman followed. Ecklie stood stock still, watching her when she finished, before he took two spins and landed in the same position as before. She followed, but he still had plenty more time to test her.

_Sometimes I feel that I should go and play with the thunder  
Somehow I just don't wanna stay and wait for a wonder_

Felicia looked at the man and his cold glare, by the way he looked, the dance was not over yet. While they danced, he was doing something to her, testing her, trying to make her break so he could see that she was just as weak as he thought she was, when she really wasn't. The Homicide could see it all in his eyes, but still, she let him take the lead, by the rules of that dance, he led, she followed. They were not a team and yet, they were.

Ecklie started to step and spin inwards. One step forwards drew into him a spin, the foot of the next step was placed on the ground when that came to an end and then the next spin came. Just like the steps, the spins happened four times in very quick succession, and the man made accurately sure that they each took up the same amount of space as each of his outwards moves had. It had to be precise. Taking the last step and spin inwards, he came face to face with the woman, Malika, who had also been spinning inwards in a likewise fashion, and took her hands again, in the same way as he had left off with. He held both hands as opposed to having the right one on her shoulder.

Moving his weight to the right in preparation to swing around together again, the Dayshift Supervisor felt the woman slide her left hand up his right arm a bit, but not onto his shoulder. He fully met her eyes, having just before, not seen them. Somewhat, it looked like she knew what he was going to do. Then they stepped together, dancing a floating circle around, starting slowly, but getting faster each time they complete a three hundred and sixty degrees circuit on the dance floor. They weren't large circles that the two people danced, just normal small ones that allowed them to move quicker, increasing their speed as they went.

_I've been watching, I've been waiting  
In the shadows for my time  
I've been searching, I've been living  
For tomorrows all my life_

Ecklie continued to lead the woman around in cheetah speed circles. It was like the two people had a pliable hoop in-between them, because, when they were just facing each other, the space created by their arms was round. Other times, when they moved out of that position, the bendable joint created by the holding of each other's hands would bend a little in the middle and the space between them would become oval shaped. Then, when the people were facing each other again, the space would snap out into a round shape.

As they continued to move, to the people watching the pair seemed to be moving onwards and upwards in what they could do. To them, it was just a continuation of what was happening until the song finished.

When the second half of the chorus came and the sound of beating drums and the electric guitar continued to fill Ecklie's ears, he stopped spinning and drew his right arm out and apart from under the woman's left. Once it was completely separated, he held it, shaped like a ninety degrees angle, near his side and stepped back, drawing the woman forwards with his other arm, the hand belonging to it still holding a hand that was not his own. Learning quickly, as her left arm was left partner-less, Felicia moved it to her side. Bending it, until it was also, shaped like the corner of a square, she let herself be drawn forward.

When the woman had swung forward enough, the Dayshift Supervisor looked like he was about to continue stepping backwards, but, instead, pushed back the opposite way and let his feet follow in the same direction. At the same time, because the woman was near enough, Ecklie kept his arm in the same corner shape and took her hand before taking one step forward at which he released it. In some ways, it was like the man was using a yoyo backwards, having already let the string out he swung her in, held her, and then, only then, let her back out.

_Lately, I've been walking, walking in circles  
Watching, waiting for something  
Feel me, touch me, heal me  
Come take me higher_

As the song seemed to step into a momentary slow lull, Ecklie drew the woman closer then they had been with the circular shape between them, and, in one swift movement, he had closed the space in-between them. When he moved, the man accomplished keeping the woman in place by placing his right arm around her as she put her left arm over it and onto the start of his shoulder. Then, at the same time as he was moving closer and positioning the other arm, the man took up the woman's right hand in his left and raised it up in the air. It was not so that their arms were straight, but rather that they were in a raised version of the corner shape that they had just been doing in the chorus with the opposite set of arms. It was probably the most recognizable position of dancing to the general public, what the two dancers had positioned themselves into at the start of the verse, was a waltz position.

Continuing with the waltz theme of things, the Dayshift Supervisor took the woman into a turning box step. Taking a step forward with his left foot, the woman's own right foot stepped back, and they left their other two feet somewhat behind as they prepared to move. The two left out feet didn't stay still for even five seconds, because, on the next move, the man lifted his right foot off the ground and moved it to the right and forwards as he turned his body a quarter of a rotation to the left. The woman kept up mirroring him and moved her left foot upwards, to the left, and backwards as she also turned in an anticlockwise direction. When both feet did meet the floor again, they were apart but in line with each other. Then, completing what was half a circle of movement, as Ecklie slid his right foot next to his other one , he pivoted on his left foot, another quarter of a circle to his left, the woman continuing her mirror movements.

To finish off the other remaining half of the circle, in a similar but reverse fashion, the man took a step back with his right foot, the woman stepping forward with her left. Afterwards, just as before, but the other way around, the Dayshift Supervisor moved his left foot up, to the left and forwards as he turned quarter of a circle to his right on his right foot.

There was one thing different as he went to move his feet together for the second time around in that particular set of steps. Instead of just doing that, Ecklie pushed with his right hand, at the woman's back. As she began to spin in a clockwise direction under his left arm, he raised the arm along with her right one, of which he still held loose hands with, loose so she could turn around as she spun under his arm. Just as the woman did pass under his left arm, the man knew that her left arm was just passing, in a curled like position, in front of his chest so he stepped his own two feet together side by side and let his right arm move. From it's angled position it was slung carefully into a completely straight one, and he left the limb pointing up and forwards, palm flat. Instead of letting her pivot around on one foot to meet him face to face again before starting another set of box steps, the Dayshift Supervisor prevented her from doing so. He did this by keeping his feet in the same place and just letting the woman spin around again and again and again. Using her right foot as a main turning point while her left guided her, the woman, Malika, was sent spinning in the exact same way, under his left arm, a further three times following the original, just one.

The steps that Ecklie had just taken, with the woman following almost his every move, had only lasted for just under the first half of the verse and as the woman completed her fourth spin it was right about time for the second half to begin. Instead of replacing her hand on his shoulder again, Felicia moved her left hand and took the man's right one like she had done sometime previous in their dance. As she did this, with her right hand still in his left, she let both their arms lower and relax some. Both pairs of arms did not go all the way down, though. They were still out in front of them a bit, just like they had been when they had been swinging with the hoop like space in-between them. A space now, that had just come back into play.

At _Feel me_, Felicia loosened her hands from the man's and put them on his shoulders, as, for the moment, their feet remained still. The Homicide didn't know, that, as she took matters into her own hands, the dance being the matters, that she had her moves pretty much corresponding to the song. It just felt right, even if she couldn't hear the music or the words, she had been counting the beat all along.

At_ touch me,_ the woman found a grip where her hands were and moved a step closer to him, trying to find his eyes. Instead, she just felt his hands moved under her arms to rest there, four fingers under an arm and the corresponding thumb stretched out and placed on the front of her, near where her shoulder connected with her arm. Eventually finding the man's eyes, the Homicide saw them and let go a small smirk, they showed that he had no idea what was going on.

At _heal me,_ the woman just flexed and bent her legs a little and thanked herself that she still had her work clothes on, a woman's dress pants and jacket suit and a smart shirt to go along with it. With the dance that he was giving her, the woman could have just as easily forgotten and forgiven what the man had said. However, she still did want her own turn at some form of payback for his unkind words. Just something small and non-descript, but something that meant something to her, even if he didn't realize that it did it at that time or ever at all.

Still not aware that she was going in time to the song, as the last quarter of the verse sounded, Felicia bent her legs a little more. Without a moment's hesitation, continuing onwards in one fluid movement she sprung off the ground and wrapped her legs quite nimbly around the man's waist as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held her own hands together. Holding that position for a brief pause, she let her hands release each other, the position letting her slide off his own hands and fall backwards. As this happened she let her arms go straight with her hands bent slightly, ready to meet the floor.

At the just the precise, right moment, the Homicide loosened her legs from around the man's waist and slid them out from around him as her hands met the dance floor. She straightened her now free legs, and, seeing as she was now facing away from the man, when the woman had the perfect handstand, without even a pause, her left leg moved in front of her. With a brilliantly preformed movement, Felicia turned herself the right up way again, her left foot hitting the floor first and the right following soon after. All in all, the whole set of movements she had just done must not have taken very long. A few seconds at the most, because, before she knew it, the man had stepped close to her and taken her hands again. Those movements shouldn't have taken long anyway, her practice had made moves like that, as close to perfect as she could get.

_I've been watching, I've been waiting  
In the shadows for my time  
I've been searching, I've been living  
For tomorrows all my life_

Being back in control and in lead of the dance again, Ecklie, as he took the woman's hands, reacted like he would have when surprised in any other shape, way or form. He kept a blank, emotionless face in response to her recently preformed trick. Positioning himself, the man's right hand had moved under the woman's left arm and placed itself firmly on her back as she placed her left hand over his right arm and onto his shoulder. The Dayshift Supervisor's left hand held the woman's right hand as their arms made the right angled shape that was so regular to the set of swing type steps that he had been doing earlier.

With the chorus starting and his hands in place, Ecklie took two small sidesteps to his left in a small shuffle and then took two sidesteps to the right. This last action was followed by another, different type of foot movement. The fifth step, which was mimicked by the woman, differed from the previous four, because, instead of being a plain sidestep, Ecklie's left foot and the woman's right foot moved out behind its owner's body and stepped over a bit. Their bodies turning a little with the fifth step movement, while keeping the ball of his foot on the floor, the man's right foot raised it's heel and tapped once as the woman's left foot copied. Stepping his left foot back in to come to a rest beside his right foot, the woman did the same. Ecklie then swung his right arm out straight before moving it back to his side, bent in the corner shape. Following along, the woman swung left arm out straight and brought it back to her side in the same shape.

As their arms came to a rest, the two people sidestepped once to the man's right and proceeded to take one step backwards, each and then one forwards. They then did the same, step behind, step across, ball of the foot on the floor tap with the other foot, before moving back in, step that they had just done. This was followed by two small sidesteps to the Dayshift Supervisor's left and then two to his right before they did the same set of step, step, tape, step back, steps for the third time. As Ecklie started another series of two steps to his right and two to his left, he put his right arm back where it had been on the woman's back and she did the same to his shoulder as they preformed one last step, step, tap, step back, motion.

For continuation, just before roughly half chorus was over, the Dayshift Supervisor dropped his right arm from her shoulder and let it hang loosely, at his side as she did the same with her left. The man and the woman then took two sidesteps to his left and then two to his right.

Not intending to do anything twice, really, Ecklie took a simple step back with his left foot as the woman took one with her right. Then, as they stepped in again, with those same feet, the man took a wide, turning type of step to his left. At the same time, he spun the woman in a clockwise direction under his left arm as his turning step, also led him, clockwise. Spinning the woman around only once, as she stopped the Dayshift Supervisor finished his stepping and came back to back with her, his left hand still holding her right and his right finding and grasping her left.

The man took a step out with his left foot, the woman one with her right. Upon stepping in again he turned what would have been just a normal step into a well placed sidestep to his left and then took another one in the same direction, as did the woman, but with her right foot and to her right. Just as he completed the second sidestep, Ecklie released the woman's left hand, at which, she, being free of any hand holding her in place, spun around in a clockwise direction under his left arm and around to face him as she went. Coming face to face with the woman again, he moved and grasped her left hand with his right, once more. As the chorus started to end the man took a step back with his left foot, the woman with her right, and moved into two sidesteps to his left and two to his right. At the speed at which he was going, he finished just in time, as that particular part of the song ended and was about to move onto whatever words it had next.

_I've been watching...  
I've been waiting...  
I've been searching...  
I've been living...  
for tomorrows..._

Still holding the woman's right hand, the Dayshift Supervisor raised his left arm up, just until there was a smoothly set out triangular shape in the space created under the apex of their joined hands. Moving his right arm under the woman's left arm, he placed his hand on her back as she put her left hand on his right shoulder. This done, Ecklie took a step forward with his left foot and the woman took a step back with her right. As if she was a puppet with a string connected to his foot, when the man drew his left foot back next to his other one, the woman's right foot followed forwards after it and stopped near her own other foot. When he stepped back with his right foot, she stepped forwards with her left. And, as the Dayshift Supervisor stepped forwards with his right foot, the woman's left foot stepped backwards and both parties ended up with their own feet side by side again.

Just as the two pairs of feet slid back into place, Ecklie removed his right hand from the woman's back and let his arm go to his side, while she, at the same time, removed her left hand from his shoulder and let her arm go down to her side also. As this was happening, the man took a step back with his left foot, and, instead of taking a step forwards with the corresponding foot, the woman took a step backwards with her right foot. Immediately afterwards, the Dayshift Supervisor took a swinging sidestep forward with his left foot. The man used his right foot as a center pivot as he turned a quarter of a circle clockwise, spinning the woman under his left arm just as he came to a stopping halt.

Placing his right arm back under the woman's left, with his hand on her back and her hand on his shoulder, Ecklie took a step diagonally to the right with his left foot. Because the woman had moved her right foot diagonally to the left, their feet, almost, almost touched. But both people were bigger than making simple mistakes like that, so the feet never touched or even got close to making that mishap happen. Instead of going back into place, the Dayshift Supervisor moved his right foot off the ground, swinging it across behind him before letting it come to rest beside his recently departed left foot. As he did this, the woman elegantly stepped her left foot up and behind herself before bringing it into place by her right foot.

Not going as far in the next step, Ecklie stepped his left foot back behind himself, the woman her right, just so much that they crossed a little behind their own stationary foot. Then, it seemed like a rewind button had been pushed, each foot slid back again in the exact same motion, but, going forwards instead of backwards. Dance was just all about opposites, because opposites held it together and let it run smoothly. For example, most recently, when Ecklie did the step backwards and forwards motion with his left foot, the woman followed in a likewise movement with her right foot. All the while, the people moved their hips in salsa like movements, those actions being a little, just a little, as a result of their own accord.

There were fives lines stretching and echoing as they came to their own individual end. There were two people, who were still moving, two persons entirely separate in nature but joined by the fact they were dancing.

By the time Ecklie and the woman completed what the man saw as the first four sets of steps, the verse was only three fifths of its way through. So, having all the time left in that verse, the man kept his arms in the same position, right arm under her left with his hand on her back and his left hand holding her right, those two hands both raised in the air. To complete the verse in dancing, the Dayshift Supervisor took a broad step sideways, to his left, swinging his hips in the same direction, his hips following his feet. Still following him herself, the woman replicated the steps using her right foot instead of her left as to not step away from the man. Instead of letting his right foot sidestep as well, Ecklie simply sidestepped back across, to the right, with his left foot, hips moving along with his feet again.

Then and only then did his right foot step to his right and back in again. After this, his left foot did as it had done previously, and, afterwards, his right foot repeated what it, itself, had just done. Then came another left step out and in, and, to finish up, the man's right foot stepped out, his hips swing in the same direction. He quickly proceeded on and stepped back in, hips swinging in the same direction and his feet meeting as the woman followed his lead.

The more recent steps that the man had chosen, were easier for her. Felicia, at least, seeing as she was the only other person up against them, thought this was so. Whether he knew it or not, the man was doing moves that she had grown up with. It felt good to have something so familiar in a place so, so, unfamiliar.

_Oou-oou oou-oou  
In the shadows..._

_Oou-oou oou-oou  
In the shadows..._

Absolutely sure that the song was coming to an end; Ecklie was still trying to test the woman to see if she would break. As of yet, she hadn't, for the entire song she'd copied his movements when needed and taken her own steps when needed. He'd tried steps from the Salsa, the Foxtrot, the Waltz, the West Coast and East Coast Swing, all faster than they should have been and nothing had happened to her, at all, whatsoever.

Taking a step back with his right foot, Ecklie spun the woman under his left arm, once, twice, three four times in a single movement, as her own left arm resting on her front. Stepping forwards with his right foot, in the pause between the two halves of the somewhat verse, the Dayshift Supervisor then stepped back again with the same foot and continued to spin the woman for a further four times. The spins were not terribly, terribly fast, nor were they terribly, terribly slow. But, however, they had enough speed in them and had such a continuity that any dancer could have gotten a head spin from it if they weren't experienced.

_I've been waiting..._

Still being sure of the end of the song being imminent, Ecklie spun the woman around once more under his left arm. Then, when she came completely around to face him again, the man started to dip her down, moving his right arm completely onto her back as to support her. He finished the deep dip, just before the last line of words rang to a more than true end.

Something that was greeted by a thunderous applause.

Hearing the loud ovation, even with her being "hard of hearing", surely loud enough for the woman, Malika, to hear, Ecklie mouthed something to the woman as he held her in the dip as the music faded out.

"Bow." was simply all the man said before he removed his right arm from the woman's back, spinning her up and out of the dip at the same time before he swung her out, so that they were standing side by side. His left arm and her right arm, still holding hands in the air, Ecklie raised them up to their highest possible height and the two people, together, took a bow, bending before rising and standing up fully again. The man and the woman likewise, had put a smile on their faces, if anything Felicia's was truer than the man's, then Julius's. The woman smiled out of happiness, Ecklie, he had an appearance to keep up, unknown people to satisfy, so he had to look like he had enjoyed the dance, even if he, hadn't.

When he stood up again the man let his face drop and his mouth set into a thin line. For the first time, he had noticed that the floor he was standing on, although fairly sized and with enough for many more couples than just them, was empty. It had, somewhere between him coming onto it and him about to leave it, with the dancing in-between, fallen completely empty, deserted except for himself and the Malika woman.

Lowering his left arm and laying her right arm on top of it, the man started to lead the woman off the floor and suppressed a growl in the back of his throat as he heard the announcer begin to speak, with crystal clear clarity.

"Well, mystery pair, I thank you for appearing here tonight and giving us a special performance. You know, ladies and gentlemen, they really should appear back here in seven months time when we reach July. They could participate in the King and Queen of Vegas Dance competition, one of Las Vegas's greatest dancing comps. And on that note, entries close tonight so come on up here if you want to and fill out the papers."

Lucky for him, she had hearing problems, and, hopefully, had not been able to get a bar of what the man had said. The clapping had started to die down by the time they got up to the top of the steps, so, releasing her hand, Ecklie pushed in front of the woman as the she went to step forward to return to the table. Taking his respective seat, the man just noticed the woman take hers and turn to her son as he raised his glass of ginger ale and downed the rest of it in one fell swoop. Getting comfortable in his chair, the Dayshift Supervisor quirked both eyebrows at the woman as she looked up at him with a near impish grin on her face. With the same type of smile on her face, she then proceeded to get up from her seat and look him in the eyes.

"What do you want?" the man said in his glacial tone of voice, lowering his eyebrows as he spoke and instead just glaring at her.

"I go to the bathroom, yes, so you maybe, do this favor for me and make sure my son does not wander off to places of untold misfortune." Felicia said, wiping the grin off her face and settling her mouth back into a small, serious, smile.

"Fine." Ecklie said simply as he immediately avoided looking at the boy by averting his eyes to the dance floor. He wasn't going to baby sit some snot sniffing, sniveling brat.

"Thank you." the woman said, smiling gratefully before she turned around and began to walk away from the table.

Felicia moved smoothly around the crowded tables, heading in the direction of the set of steps that led to the upper level along with the door to the DJ's box. If the man, that Julius man, wanted to call her drunk and act so unkindly towards her, then, he could very well get a taste of his own medicine. God only knew the man deserved it and she had just the perfect plan. While she had enjoyed the dance, he clearly hadn't.

Even though it took the good part of two minutes to get to the steps, and ascend them, Felicia eventually was standing in front of the DJ's door. As she stood there, the Homicide paused, and noted that it was black. It matched the black carpeting that ran along the area of the box itself, which was set into a chunk of wall where it was situated. In a way, the carpeting just defined the perimeter of the box, because it only appeared on those parts of the wall that the box belonged to.

Eventually getting herself away from the room, which, by itself, was intriguing, and, to her best guesses yet, soundproof, the woman raised her right hand. She then gave a semi loud knock on the door, as to notify the person inside that she was there, but not to interrupt anything, possibly important, that might be going on inside. A few seconds of waiting later, however, the door was opened and answered by a man, she guessed, who was no older, if anything, younger, than herself. Pursing her lips, the woman looked at him before smiling when he didn't speak.

"You do not speak or ask, but I look to join, to sign up to this competition that you speak about over your microphone." Felicia said before dipping her head down and raising it, looking a little embarrassed.

"Hey, hey, yeah, I'll get you the papers and we'll put your name down." the man said quickly before pausing, to probably take a breath seeing as he spoke very fast. The man's speaking was too fast for Felicia to comprehend with the little English lip-reading and English understanding that she had.

"Man you guys were great, you must have rehearsed for months on that dance." the DJ continued, before the woman put a single finger to his lips and prevented him from speaking any further.

"You speak too fast for the likes of me. I do find it hard to hear, especially with all this noise you must have around this wonderful place. So, you take deep breaths and tell me slowly, what you have just said. And before you ask, I am not stupid, I just need this slowness so I can read your lips." the Homicide said resignedly and quietly, before she removed her finger from the man's lips and lowered her hand.

"I'll get you the papers, you sign them, I'll put you and your partner in the comp and give you the documents and the rules you need. Then, in seven months, I'll meet you back here to play your chosen song. I got a question though, how long did it take to make that up? I've seen some pretty good dancers but you guys, you guys were amazing." the man said slowly, just as the woman had requested.

"Thank you. It did not take very long, maybe a few seconds, he lead, I follow. I have a question and a request of you maybe. What is the name of the song you put on, that we dance to? Maybe you are able to give me its person of writing and its name." the woman said smiling and nodding as she waited for the man to do whatever he had to do.

"In The Shadows by The Rasmus." the DJ said quietly before turning back into his booth and blinking, a few seconds, lead, follow, damn that woman could move.

Within a few minutes more, using the name she had given the Julius man, and, the name the Julius man had given her, Felicia completed the papers, quite happy that it only took one person at the least to actually sign up for the competition. Afterwards, armed with some sets of pamphlets and papers, the woman began heading back to the table. These papers and pamphlets were accompanied by the name of the artist and the title of the song that she had just danced to, written by the man for her on a piece of paper.

It took about the same amount of time as it had before, maybe a bit shorter seeing as some of the hype of people moving around had calmed down, for the Homicide to get back to the table. After taking her seat again, the woman took the papers out of her arms and set them, away from the food and drinks, in the middle of the table. Then she picked up the piece of paper with the song and artist written on it and tucked it in her jacket pocket. Looking up and facing the man with a grin, Felicia put a fist to her mouth and cleared her throat to get his attention, and, when he turned around and faced her, she lowered her hand and uncurled it, still being unable to wipe the triumphant look off her face.

"What to you want?" Ecklie said without a hint of emotion or anything in his voice, or, in his face either, which held a rather blank emotion. Both things were fairly normal for a man of his being.

"We join the competition. Very luckily we have the last place that was available." the woman said, still smiling as she selected one set of competition information and pushed it slightly forwards towards the man opposite her, before taking her set and holding it in her lap.

Ecklie looked blank for a moment as he picked up the papers and flicked through them, registering their information with ballpoint accuracy. Dancing, competition, July, him and, that woman, her. The man blinked as he finished looking through the papers, his mouth then curling into a cruel hearted frown. There were a number of ways to get out of that situation, he could just exit point blank and never go to the dance club again and never see the god forsaken woman again and have the whole situation completely wiped off the timeline. She hadn't broken when in the dance and had tried to keep up with it, something that had been done without failure. That something was a thing that very well could be useful in such a competition.

The Dayshift Supervisor shook himself mentally and looked up, glaring piercingly at the woman with spiteful hate.

"You're on." the man said simply, putting the papers and other assorted crap in his left hand before putting his hand inside his coat and withdrawing a blue pen from his shirt pocket. Clicking the nib of the pen out so he could write with it, he looked through the papers and found a space on one of them that had no information on either side. Writing down an address, he clicked the pen in again and returned it to his pocket before ripping the small scrap of paper off and handing it to the woman.

"Meet me there tomorrow at one o'clock. The address is for a church, there is a hall behind it, meet me there. I'll make sure the door is left unlocked for you. Park around the back and go in through back entrance, going through the graveyard takes longer." Ecklie continued on in the tone of voice of someone delivering orders as opposed to anyone giving directions or being remotely kind. Something which he wasn't being anyway, kind, the man was just simply delivering information to the woman and making sure she saw only what he wanted her to see about his personal life.

"And I'll change all my days off to correspond with yours." Felicia responded dryly, her clipped, round edged voice laced with dry wit and sarcasm as she looked at the man, smile falling and her lips and forming into a small thin horizontal line on her face. She could read his words, most of them at least, loud and clear since he spoke none too slowly or quickly. But, catching the way his mouth moved and the way his face looked, she read some of the tone he was using and vaguely it made her a bit angry at him.

"If you must." Ecklie said, smirking at the woman with equal sarcasm in his own voice. It was almost entertaining to see her anger flare up, it showed in her voice, or, at least, attempted to. Whatever degree of hearing problems she had, it affected the way she spoke to some degree and when she poked in sarcasm and anger as she had just done, it showed slightly more.

Looking at the man, the Homicide shook her head and smiled again, seeing as the previous one had just been wiped off her face in sheer reaction to the his attitude. She then looked, from his face, down to her watch. Watching the second hand tick once as she checked the time of night, the woman looked back to the man before picking up her drink and drinking the rest of the bubbly liquid, seeing that her son had already finished his own. Still silent, Felicia pushed out her chair and stood up, getting out of the way before pushing it back into the table and giving a nod to the small boy, who also stood and did the same thing.

Turning her gaze back to the still seated man, the woman smiled. Somewhere between hating him and drinking, she had lost her other smile and then found his eyes for a few brief moments. Whatever it was, she felt pity for him and whatever he hid behind his veil, so, because of that, the smile she gave him was genuinely good natured.

"I leave now, yes, but I do meet up with you tomorrow and we maybe will see how the days between us, work out for these possible practicing sessions. Goodnight." the Homicide said after a short pause in which she adjusted the pieces of paper from being held in both hands to just under her right arm.

Ecklie said nothing and merely just looked up at the woman with a cold stare before looking back to the table. Moving his plate and glass aside, he started to sort through the papers and pamphlets. Finding one of the more shiny pieces of useless information, the man opened the pamphlet up and began to read whatever it had inside, and, left it at that. No speaking, no nothing, just reading.

Felicia shook her head before she gave another small, silent nod to her son. Both people then began to walk off, weaving their ways, side by side, around the tables and people. Upon getting out of the doors and exiting the dance club, the pair looked at each other and smiled a bit before the woman unlocked her car and put the papers in the back seat. Getting in the car, mother and son took up their places in the seats, the small boy in the front passenger seat and the Homicide in the driver's seat. Starting up the car, the woman pulled out of her parking space and began to drive home. What was, as close as she could get to home at that time, that was. Leaving Cuba and coming to Las Vegas to start a new life was something which left home as just an idea for a while. That was, until both people, Felicia and Xavier, settled in fully and relaxed and began trusting the people that were going to be constantly around them. Even if the house they lived in was truly theirs through and through, it still did not make it a home. It was new and they had barely been there a week, let alone a lifetime, or, even just enough time to call the place a real, true, home.

A profoundly deaf woman who had constant problems hearing any sound, and, a man who had constant problems with his past. Just a man, and a woman, and a time, and two lives. And that was that, just that, nothing more, nothing less, nothing up, nothing down, just two people, and, a dance.


	2. Secrets Held No More

**Dancing In The Shadows**

**Chapter Two: Secrets Held No More**

It was a cold Sunday morning after the 8:30am mass, which had ended on spot time at 9:45am. Ecklie had moved himself over to the church hall when the pastor had wanted to lock up the church building. He'd been about to pack up and clean his flute but the man had been in a hurry so he had been forced to oblige and move over to the second building.

Drawing himself up a seat from the side of the room, to the middle, the man looked from the music case in his left hand, to the watch sitting around his right arm. He then lifted the small instrument case itself, onto his lap with it positioned so he could open the lid away from him. There were a few people generally just milling around near the servery, with its open roller door, referred to commonly as "the hatch in the wall". It was morning tea time so they were drinking tea and coffee and eating biscuits and the like that had been provided by the people on roster that day.

Without second glance Ecklie knew that there was an over 50 chance that the people standing there chatting were older than he was. Not many "new young folk" came to their church; anybody who was younger was a relative, a child or grandchild of one of the older men or woman of the congregation. It didn't really matter to him, at all, whether young people came to mass and carried on the tradition. He knew that every year or so they would get a few new participants, recent movers to the area, and that kept them going.

Of course, there was only one downside to the fact that the church had mainly an older population with young comers, leavers and stayers. Seeing that Ecklie was, by far, the youngest long term stayer and goer to the church, amongst a few of the old women, he was avidly considered to be the church's baby and he hated it to no end. Nobody should still have been treating him like a baby that needed protecting. He was an independent and he didn't need some fruit cake nut bats running around pinching his cheeks and telling him how grown up and strong he was about everything that had happened to him in the past.

They tried to think about what effect it had on him, but, they were from a previous generation. What weren't housewives were nurses, what weren't nurses were librarians or some other stereotypical job that the generation before them had ordered them to have. None of them were psychologists and those who didn't comfort him and molly coddle him, when he didn't want any of that crap, just told him to get on with it. The latter were the harder of the two types of people, and, even though they had a fine line in-between themselves, it could be seen easily by him, at least.

What was even worse, was, because they knew the ins and outs of his personal life, namely through his aunt, they called him up, late at night, when they got worried about this or that or somebody, "possibly", sneaking around their house. He was no plank minded cop, he was a damn CSI, he didn't, and was not, authorized, to do arrests, if anything. Though it wasn't surprising how daft some of the woman could be, they were all as cracked up as the next one, picky, clean, and concerned over miscellaneous duties. He was clean, and kept his house in a perfectly clean state, but he didn't go around dusting everything every two seconds, that was going way too far.

Positioning both hands on either end of the case, with his thumbs on the front, Ecklie carefully flicked open each of the two clasps that held the flute case closed. He did them one at a time, the left one first and then the right, before opening up the musical instrument case. Proceeding, in fluent motion, the man gripped the bottom half of the case with one hand and did the same with the top half, and, still seated, bent over at the waist. Carefully lowering the Flute case onto the floor, he opened it and took out the mouthpiece pipe and the flute cleaning rod, complete with a freshly washed cloth. The man then straightened up and proceeded to finally, at last, begin the cleaning process.

Naturally, after playing the instrument for over half of his life, he knew, that if he didn't clean it properly, or not at all, for that matter, that he would get a mold build up. That was something that he had never let happen and didn't intend to let happen ever as long as the instrument was under his jurisdiction.

Firstly the 8 inch long cleaning rod was inserted, cloth strip end, into the mouthpiece pipe and was fastidiously wiped and turned around to get out every possible spot of moisture that could have been there. Satisfied, the man replaced the piece in the case and took out the main body of the flute before drawing the cloth in and around the piece in which he could look in one end, and see through and out the other. This was, because, the middle piece, was, in some light respects, hollow.

To finish up, Ecklie replaced the midsection of his instrument in its appropriate place in the crushed velvet lined, plush interior of the case, and, then, took out the final piece to clean, the foot joint. Wiping the cloth through the foot joint and being just as thorough and careful as he had with all the other pieces, the man made sure he avoided damaging the delicate key connection. Yet, he took the cloth, a few times, through the small hole on one end of the object. The objective was to clean all areas that were available to be cleaned with the cleaning rod and it's strip of cloth. All areas meant everywhere inside the flute, and he, was going to fill the objective to the full 100.

Leaning forward, Ecklie laid the last piece of the flute back into its proper place in the instrument case. He then placed the cleaning rod back into its own, individual, "carved out", countersunk place in the smallish rectangular box with a handle. Shutting the lid, the man flipped the clasps slowly shut one by one, left one first, right one last. He then picked up the case by the handle and sat up in his chair once more, still with the same blank sort of face that he almost always wore. The hard, black plastic flute case, flute now safe and clean, hung by his side for a few moments before Ecklie stood up with one swift, clean cut movement and turned around towards the door of the church hall. As soon as he was standing and had finished turning, the man promptly starting to head towards the door. Pausing in the doorway, he craned his neck around a bit and looked back over his shoulder at the group of tea and coffee drinking church goers. In particular, the woman who normally locked up.

"I need the keys for the hall for later Judith. I've checked and it's not booked today at all. I'll be back in a couple of seconds to get them from you." Ecklie said before he let his head turn back to its normal position. After he had done that, the tall, balding man continued onwards. Moving completely through the doorway he then headed out to his car. As he went, the man withdrew his keys out the side pocket of his pants with his spare hand.

Opening the boot of the car, he placed the instrument case at the very back of the nearly empty space and surveyed the placing of the object before shutting the boot door and locking it. On any other occasion, that being if he was actually heading home straight away, he would have put the case in the passenger seat. However, just at that time, he wasn't going home, so, because of that fact, it was staying in the boot. With its crime rate levels, leaving the flute case in plain view in a city such as Las Vegas, would only spell trouble. The car was under shade and it was a cool day, so it would be completely fine, safe and out of view.

As he put his keys back in his pocket and began to walk back towards the building, Ecklie's ears alerted him to the starting up of a harsh crowing sound. Head turning so he looked upwards, the man found the source, a bird, non other than the crow to be exact. Some Greeks were very superstitious, he wasn't. However, that didn't stop the words "Sto Kalo… Sto Kalo… Kala Nea na me Feris", from flashing through his mind. Loosely translated it meant go well into the day and bring me good news. Crows were considered omens of bad news, misfortune and death. When a person saw or heard a crow cawing, they were meant to say that. He wasn't superstitious, but it didn't stop the words flashing through his mind as he drew on an inexhaustible fountain of knowledge.

Entering the hall again, Ecklie fixed himself a cup of black coffee, no sugar, and a biscuit. After getting the set of hall keys off the woman, he put them in his pants pocket along with his own personal set of keys. The man then spent the next few minutes talking to the remaining morning teat attendees. It paid well to keep up appearances, people left him alone more often if they thought him to be their idea of "ok." If he played the part and looked to be the man that they thought he should be, then his life was easier around those group of people.

None of those people were close friends, in particular. After all, he wasn't a man much for friends, more acquaintances or contacts. He made relations to those people that were useful to him, especially when he played his cards right and got on their good side. But they were his friends to. Some people said business couldn't be mixed with pleasure, but he did exactly that, friends and contacts were one and the same. It worked better, smoother even, if they got something back.

His definition though, of friends, was very similar to his definition of contacts, people who he was friendly with in order to make networks. Those bridges that he had made and continued to make, would ensure that his future was a good, secure one. If someone had to be fired, for instance, it wouldn't be him, and his chances of being the scapegoat for something were very slim. It was the way the Dayshift Supervisor liked things to go, at the end of the day it made him the better man.

Felicia laughed as she put the strap of the shoulder bag back on her right shoulder. It had started to slip off, maybe she'd packed too many things in there, but it was the kind of bag that could handle it. They'd intended to spend the whole day out, so, it seemed to make sense, to pack for the trip. Las Vegas, was, like a trip to them, even if they were just doing small things like shopping or walking, it was so busy, so new, so bright. It shared some similarities with their old home, but, it was still vastly, so very vastly, different.

The woman stifled another laugh and watched as her son gesticulated wildly with his hands, in imitation of the flustered waiter that had so recently served them their lunch. The poor man, from what she'd been able to read off his lips, as he stood on the other side of the room, a large number of the other waiters were out sick or attending to family matters. Somehow, the mother and son pair had been able to overcome the bout of guilt caused by the waiter's woes. The change in mood was clear, as they had begun to compare the waving of his arms to an excited octopus.

Back in his seat, reading a book, as he heard the first happy strains of laughter, Ecklie placed his bookmark on the page that he was on, closed the novel, and looked up. His head then swiveled quickly to the right and his eyes focused on the door. If the woman had any sense, she'd take the one that was open and walk through it. He'd even made sure the door was kept open especially for the purpose of letting her find it quickly, so they could get down to business. Even if it was the front door and not the back entrance. The man's head stayed turned and he continued to listen, the second, older sounding laugh, only serving to make his lips twist into a thin, firm, disapproving line. Then his head turned back to it's normal position.

The Homicide stopped and watched the open door, just out of sight of anybody who may have been looking through any one of the large windows that adorned the hall. Xavier, who was walking alongside his mother, on her left side, carefully reached up with his right hand and gently grasped her left. Raising up his head so he could meet her eyes, he found her head already turned towards him, questioning, wanting reassurance.

Felicia smiled a little and licked her lips as her son gave her the same look as she was giving him. Kneeling down on both knees, the woman was aware of the coldness of the paving underneath them as she hugged the young boy. Despite the fact that it was a sunny day, the stones were cold. The ones she rested on were protected from the heat by an overhanging roof, which certainly did not give them much of a welcoming feel if there ever was meant to be one. Apart from that, the loose skirt she was wearing provided only so much shelter from the warning temperature.

As the Homicide hugged her son, she pressed her face softly into his neck.

Only when she felt him do the same, pressing his face into the mass of her curls that hung down loose, did the woman smile and let a chuckle ripple through her throat.

Ecklie had all the patience in the world, in his job he had to have patience, patience for the victim, for the evidence, patience for the suspect. It was not the evidence trinity that he was so aware of when being patient in his job, he was not linking suspect, victim and crime scene, but it was a trinity all the same. He had to have patience between the victim and the evidence, the evidence and the suspect and the suspect and the victim. While the woman didn't fit into any of those two trinities, he could still have patience. Sometimes though, patience needed to egg on the happenings around it.

"¡date prisa!" the man said quickly, but clearly and loudly also. She may have been hard of hearing, but that didn't give her an excuse to waste his time.

That time, it was the small boy's turn to move his head. Complete with brown curls of hair, it bobbed up when he heard the voice from inside the building. Moving away from the hug, he relayed the message quickly to his mother and told her who it had come from. The mother nodded quietly as her son's lips moved, and, then, stood up when he had finished speaking.

As they walked through the open door into the hall, Felicia had her son's hand in her own again. Except that, that time, just before entering the doorway, it had been her who had reached to grasp it, her left in his right. They both wanted comfort, that was clear to both people, woman and boy. What the man had said last night made them somewhat afraid of what he would say at their second meeting that morning. Would he be as mean as before? As cruel? As cold hearted? As scary? So many questions, so little answers. Unlike a crime, Felicia had no option to research about the subject, find out something about the man. She only had a face, a personality, and a single name to go on and none of that amounted to terribly much at all.

"I didn't know you could speak Spanish." the Homicide said as she walked across the wooden floor. She could feel her footsteps as they fell, quiet as she could make them, but still quick, still striding with confidence. While she may have still held her son's hand for comfort, the woman was confident, strong even. She wasn't that easy to defeat, he wasn't going to win and she was going to try and be not as afraid of him.

They both stopped near the man, to his right side.

Ecklie waited until he heard the woman stop. Then, and only then, did the man give one of his sly smirks and lean forward. Forearms on his legs, he set the book down on the floor in front of him and turned his head away from her, to the left and kept that position.

"The name Malika has Arabic origins, but your accent sounds Spanish, Cuban even." the man said, his mouth completely out of sight of the woman. There was one way of telling how hard of hearing she actually was. He believed her tale, somewhat, but it was his job, after all, to try and go one step further when he only knew so much information and did not believe that he had the full story as of yet.

Seeing his chance in the man's head being turned away, Xavier took his hand away from his mother's own hand and began to sign out what the man had said to her. His hands moved quickly and without hesitation. They moved on and around each other in a captivating dance that was heavily laced with the urgency to get the message across. Felicia's eyes were cast slightly downwards as she watched, not wanting to draw that much attention to herself, or her problem, even if the man wasn't looking at her. Only two seconds had passed before Ecklie's head swung around to face the woman, and, he snapped his eyes on her, and the little boy, who he had caught in mid sign.

Xavier's look became mildly startled when he saw the man's eyes lock onto him and his mother. His hands fell silently to his sides, immediately, obediently following his brain without question. Felicia's expression was off a different variety to the small boy's, it was like a lot of expressions had tried to squash themselves through a very small doorway, all at once, and had gotten stuck in the process. She looked a tiny bit shocked, a fraction sad, a smidgeon remorseful and just the smallest, smallest amount, knowing. She knew that he knew what she knew, or something like that.

"Let's cut to the chase." the balding man said as he straightened up in the chair and then stood up. Taking the few steps needed to reach the woman, Ecklie stopped at a comfortable distance from her. There were perhaps two heads between them and she had already been near him.

"Exactly, how "hard of hearing" are you?" the man continued, still in his smooth, silky, clear cut, no fuss tone. So easy to understand was his way of speaking at that moment, that, even the emphasis he put into those few select words, was as crystal clear as the clear, colourless glass itself.

"Profoundly deaf. Can I make myself any clearer? Any easier to understand? I'll try. Totally, unable, to hear, sound." the woman replied in perfect timing with the beat of the conversation. It was quick, and sharp, with distinct edges. And, if he didn't make the next move, then the turn would be hers and she would.

With a nod, Felicia walked away from the man and over to her right, to the chairs stacked up against the wall, all stacks next to each other in a straight line. Taking two chairs from one stack, the woman set them down on the floor and put them next to each other. As her son sat down, she put her bag on the free chair and ruffled his hair with a smile, which only grew in happiness as it was returned by him. Moving back to the man, the Homicide brushed her right hand across his cheek. Looking for and watching his reaction, she led him further out onto the floor with her spare hand, away from his chair, away from her son.

The pair spent the next few hours dancing. The sun had stated to head downwards in the sky before they stopped moving. As they departed from the hall, both people exchanged addresses and phone numbers and agreed to meet up on the next Sunday. As it turned out the man had a wonderful memory, which was extremely accurate, and had transcribed the dance down to paper. He'd also bought a cd that had the song they had danced to on it, all of this happening overnight. The man was the kind of man who tried very hard to ward others away, but could be easily seen into all the same. He was only human after all.


End file.
